PA Finds Bibi's Biblical Reference 'Distasteful' - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

PA Finds Bibi's Biblical Reference 'Distasteful' - Defense/Middle East - Israel News - Israel National News

by Maayana Miskin

(IsraelNationalNews .com) Senior Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat has criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for mentioning the Jewish people's historic tie to Jerusalem as described in the Bible. He accused the prime minister of "[using] religion to incite hatred and fear."

Netanyahu had made reference to numerous Biblical references to Jerusalem while addressing the Knesset in a session honoring Jerusalem Day – the anniversary of the day on which Israel's capital was reunited after 19 years during which Jordan held control of the eastern half of the city.

The Bible refers to Jerusalem and Zion 850 times, Netanyahu said.

At first he did not say how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the holy writings of other faiths, but after he was challenged by an Israeli Arab MK, he said Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran at all, although a 12th century interpretation of the Koran does say one passage referred to the city. However, the prime minister clarified, "It is not my intention to detract from the bond other peoples have with Jerusalem... I am challenging the attempts to distract from, distort or erase our unique bond with Jerusalem."

Leaders in the PA, and Muslims leaders in Israel, have often portrayed the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, and to the Temple Mount in particular, as a threat to Islam. Israel has been accused of attempting to "Judaize" Jerusalem and to damage or destroy the Al-Aksa mosque.

The PA has claimed all of the neighborhoods formerly held by Jordan, including the Old City, the City of David and the Temple Mount, as the future capital of a PA state. Speaking Wednesday, Erekat warned, "East Jerusalem cannot continue to be occupied if there is to be peace."

Netanyahu, like previous prime ministers, states that Israel's capital will not be divided.

-con't - here

Human Rights Just a Joke At the U.N.

Human Rights Just a Joke At the U.N.

By Anne Bayefsky

- FOXNews.com

Things are going from bad to worse at the U.N. Come Thursday, the U.N. Human Rights Council will include Libya!

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/05/11/anne-bayefsky-iran-united-nations-human-rights-council-libya/

Islam's Nowhere Men

Islam's Nowhere Men
Millions like Faisal Shahzad are unsettled by a modern world they can neither master nor reject.


By FOUAD AJAMI

'A Muslim has no nationality except his belief," the intellectual godfather of the Islamists, Egyptian Sayyid Qutb, wrote decades ago. Qutb's "children" are everywhere now; they carry the nationalities of foreign lands and plot against them. The Pakistani born Faisal Shahzad is a devotee of Sayyid Qutb's doctrine, and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, was another.
.....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703338004575230142684329162.html

'This is a big day for Israel' - OECD accepts Israel into its ranks

'This is a big day for Israel'
By GIL HOFFMAN, JPOST STAFF AND AP
10/05/2010 12:39

PM speaks of his delight after OECD accepts Israel into its ranks.
.....
Uri Gutman, the Foreign Ministry's director of the OECD accession process, said Israel was now a "member of a prestigious organization, but also an organization that has some credibility and influence on the world economy."

Speaking to Army Radio after the vote, Steinitz hailed the decision to accept Israel into the "most respectable socioeconomic club" as being of “immense importance,” saying it had both economic and political value.
.....



http://www.jpost.com/Business/BusinessNews/Article.aspx?ID=175158

The Welfare State's Death Spiral

The Welfare State's Death Spiral
By Robert Samuelson

WASHINGTON -- What we're seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state. This isn't Greece's problem alone, and that's why its crisis has rattled global stock markets and threatens economic recovery. Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect. Aging populations have been promised huge health and retirement benefits, which countries haven't fully covered with taxes. The reckoning has arrived in Greece, but it awaits most wealthy societies.
.....


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/10/the_welfare_states_death_spiral_105503.html

'Talks doomed due to Arafat's legacy'

'Talks doomed due to Arafat's legacy'

".....
No matter what we do, I do not see a Palestinian leader who is willing to accept what Arafat rejected, and I don’t see a Jewish prime minister who can give more than what [Ehud] Barak offered. Therefore, I see it as a dead end," he said.
....."


cont here

RealClearPolitics - In Afghanistan, the Clock is Ticking

George Will,,
Must read:

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- The ticking clock does not disturb the preternatural serenity that Gen. David Petraeus maintains regarding Afghanistan. Officially, the U.S. Central Command is located here; actually, it is wherever he is, which is never in one place for very long. He is away about 300 days a year, flying to and around his vast area of responsibility, which extends from Egypt to where his towering reputation is hostage to a timetable -- Afghanistan.

He earned his own chapter in American military history by advocating and presiding over the surge that broke the back of the Iraq insurgency. This was an instance of a military intellectual given full opportunity for the unity of theory and practice.

con't here

More Inconvenient Obamacare Truths | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

From the Heritage Foundation. The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

Last week the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final cost projections for Obamacare, finding that, contrary to White House claims, the legislation will increase national health spending by $311 billion over the next decade and will cause 14 million Americans to lose their current employer-based health coverage. President Barack Obama unleashed his staff to attack Foster’s work. Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer downplayed and criticized Foster’s analysis on the White House website. As Heritage’s Rob Bluey reports this was not the first time the author of the report, Medicare and Medicaid chief actuary Rick Foster, had been attacked by a White House:

con't.